So when Mattingly stepped to the plate to make the most important decision of his young managerial career he sat fastball, got exactly that and took a mighty cut.

Thanks to the baseball resurrection of one Juan Uribe, Mattingly drilled a double off the wall.

The Dodgers now are moving onto the National League Championship Series, where they will face either the Pittsburgh Pirates or St. Louis Cardinals, after Monday’s dramatic 4-3 win over the Atlanta Braves that sent Dodger Stadium into a frenzy.

But not without a bit of deft card-playing by Mattingly, who opened himself up to criticism and perhaps even calls for his job by simply making the right call.

A tough call, but the correct one.

With his Dodgers needing one win to dispose of the Braves and avoid heading to Atlanta for a winner-take-all Game 5, Mattingly called on ace Clayton Kershaw to take the mound in Game 4 on three days’ rest.

Knowing full well if he failed, Zack Greinke was his safety net in the event of a Game 5.

Needing one win and having two games to get it, he bracketed his bet with his two best pitchers and never looked back.

“I think I’d question myself a lot more when you have two aces and if you don’t play them both,” Mattingly said. “We’ve got two chances to ... we’ve got two chances if something doesn’t work out the way we want it to tonight, then we’re sitting with an ace in Game 5.”

We now know it won’t come to that, not after Uribe saved the Dodgers from a win-or-go-home situation with one of the biggest home runs in the history of the franchise.

The Dodgers trailed 3-2 in the bottom of the eighth when Uribe came to bat with Yasiel Puig standing at second base after a lead-off double. Twice Uribe attempted to bunt Puig to third, where a fly ball would score him and tie the game.

Only to foul off both attempts.

With bunting no longer an option, Uribe blasted a David Carpenter pitch deep into the Dodgers bullpen in left field for a two-run home run to make it 4-3.

Dodger Stadium erupted and Mattingly was justified.

Because the way Atlanta starter Freddy Garcia neutralized the Dodgers’ bats, they needed Kershaw to keep the game as close as he did to give them a chance to win it with one swing of the bat.

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Something Ricky Nolasco, the scheduled starter, was no guarantee to do.

It was a risky decision, and on some level it reeked of desperation. But maybe not for the reasons you think.

The danger was Kershaw never before had pitched on such limited rest, and an adverse reaction probably would mean a return trip to Atlanta for Game 5 at Turner Field, where the Braves had a 56-25 record during the regular season.

The risk was Kershaw’s body not reacting well to being rushed back to action after throwing 124 pitches in Game 1.

Remote as the concern might be, the potential of injury always is a worry. But Mattingly consulted multiple times with Kershaw, who insisted he felt great and was up to the challenge.

“If he wasn’t a 100 percent on board and, again, I think the words that we listen to and his words, that’s why he works so hard,” Mattingly said. “He works so hard to get to this position and to be in this game.”

The desperation isn’t that Mattingly knows his job might be on the line if the Dodgers flame out in the first round of the playoffs and he turned to Kershaw to help ensure advancement to the next round for selfish reasons as much as any other.

Mattingly is flying without a parachute this postseason, his contract is up at the end of the season and the Dodgers are non-committal about bringing him back.

Right or wrong, his job security would have taken a gigantic hit with a first-round exit. But Mattingly’s been practical about his future all season and there were plenty of opportunities this year for him to push things for his own purpose.

But he always resisted.

This was not about Mattingly’s job. He wants to remain with the Dodgers, but if it doesn’t work out here there will be other opportunities for him — a potential opening with his beloved New York Yankees perhaps one of them.

“No, it’s nothing to do with my future. It’s just winning, period,” Mattingly said. “We’re trying to win a game today. We’re trying to put ourselves in the best position to win a game today.”

The desperation is that right now, the Dodgers have only two sure things in their pitching rotation in Kershaw and Greinke and nothing but uncertainty behind them. That is an issue that may cost them down the road.

So he went with his best bet, trusted his instincts that Garcia’s junk-ball repertoire might be a bad match-up for his aggressive-hitting Dodgers and minimized any anxiety by giving Kershaw the ball rather than the struggling Nolasco.

The Dodgers had a chance to put the Braves away, buy themselves four days of rest before the NLDS and line up their pitching rotation with Greinke and Kershaw for Games 1 and 2 with both available for Games 6 and 7 if needed.

All that potentially could been compromised with another bad outing by Nolasco, who surrendered five, six and five earned runs in three of his last four starts.

Why chance it, then, when you have Kershaw essentially demanding the ball?

Think fastball, adjust to the off-speed pitch. Then jump on the cheese if it’s there.

Was it risky? Sure. But Mattingly was holding onto one more card, and it made all the difference in the world.

Even if Kershaw stumbled, Mattingly knew he had Greinke on regular rest for Game 5.

As he and the Dodgers mulled over the possible scenarios, the Greinke factor helped seal the deal.

“As we kept looking at it, it made more and more sense,” Mattingly said. “If it worked out, again, if it worked out, that you’d be able to go Clayton Game 4. Then if something wouldn’t work out here, have Zack for Game 5.”